My thoughts on the situation

Not that everyone else hasn't posted something similar, but I have spent some time trying to express how it makes me feel - and perhaps if I can edit it a little more I may send to the UTAD. Anyway, this is my soliloquy on where I think we are:

I’ve spent the better part of the weekend and this week trying to come up with how to accurately describe the way I feel about the current situation at the University of Tennessee regarding the football program and coaching change. It is clear that both Chancellor Jimmy Cheek and Athletic Director Dave Hart acted not only against the best interests of the University and the football program, but against the vested interests of hundreds of donors and millions of fans and alum. They are clearly spiteful, petty and contemptible “men” who put their own insecurities before the well-being of the organizations they were charged to protect and support (and paid handsomely in return).

There is no retribution available or suitable for these cowards. Termination allows them to leave with a healthy buyout, yet if they are allowed to continue to be employed at the University they can continue their reign of cow hearted maneuvering that will only weaken the already unstable foundation that my 219 year old alma mater was built on.

To Butch Jones, I wish you the best. You haven’t (and likely will never) win my admiration; especially if you continue to use lowest common denominator coach-speak. In my eyes you are the second coming of [ddiapos] – more adequate in some areas and less in others. Of course, you did lose to him. You did what almost anyone else would do and bettered your own situation in life by taking a higher paid job, and I cannot fault you for that. I will fault you, however, when in 2015 you are spouting the same nonsense about diving in and getting to work that I have heard coming from Tennessee Football figureheads since 2005 with absolutely 0 results. I am convinced that in the SEC you will be, at absolute best, an eight win coach. In 20 years I feel that you will be as much of an afterthought in Tennessee history as [ddiapos], Lane Kiffin, and Bill Battle.

To the Tennessee administration and football program – I am taking a giant step backward. I cannot continue to pour emotional energy into a program that obviously is not committed to winning championships – and championships are THE ONLT THING THAT MATTER. I will come back when a core leadership group that has a clear understanding of what Tennessee is about, and what it means to be committed to Tennessee superiority, is back in a decision making role in Knoxville. This does not in any way make me a fair weather fan, on the contrary – I want the outright best for my alma mater and their athletic department but I cannot keep blindly cheering when that would only foster a false sense of accomplishment for those that decided Butch Jones was the best fit for Tennessee Football.

 

Bowden Wyatt is hardly an afterthought... played under the General, coached an SEC championship team, brought Johnny Majors to Knoxville, beat #1 LSU.

 

You are correct. Edited.

I should also add that I don't think Kiffin was a bad coach nor do I blame him for leaving. I just think that in 20 years only the most idiotic will still be talking about how he dun us wrong.

 

Very, very outstanding post

I feel the same way.

Supporting the new coach means you support Hart/Cheek.

 

A lot of conjecture. You're basing this off what? If I told you that Haslam was behind the Butch Jones hire, does that mean anything? Or will you still be in this redneck assumption that Hart & Cheek somehow made a rogue power play to hire Butch at 3am and caught everyone with their pants down?

 

So you know that everyone was on board with Butch Jones? He contacted him Thursday night and they were in Knoxville the following morning. You think that the way Hart conducted the coaching search was a planned process that they had been working on for months under the assumption that Dooley would be released? You know for a fact that Gruden wasn't in play? You are sure that Hart didn't give Buzz Cut Jones an absolutely ridiculous buyout as an f-you to the fans and donors? Convince me.

 

Did I say everyone?

I asked about Haslam. If he ok'd the Butch Jones hire, does that mean anything to you?

 

That asshat brought in the Jimmy Hyams Haslam story!

Sheep.

 

Is this about the plane?

 

The ignore button is about to come out.

 

Done!

 

.

 

In the sense that this was still a terrible hire? That Hart decided he'd rather show his ass than make the best hire available?

No, it wouldn't mean a thing.

 

Someone had to tell the other boosters of how third rate the hire was.

 

It means they weren't committed to hiring the best available coach

 

You realize that everyone outside of 8thmaxim is laughing at this notion, right? There's a very large "conspiracy theory" feel around stuff like this.

Gruden has been working out the details of his contract for over 2 months, still haven't been able to finalize it, likely because of concerns with Cheek and the University. There's talks that if Cheek doesn't get in line he'll be fired during the board meeting. He's not fired and then pledges to give 18 million back to the UTAD. So far so good? Yet the contract still isn't finalized. In order to buy the boosters more time, Hart and his AD distribute misinformation (1664) to the Knoxville media. Fake candidates, fake offers, whatever. They get more and more time but still no contract. Then Hart starts to go rogue because he doesn't want Gruden and offers Gundy & Strong, or maybe he didn't (1664). Once they publicly reject him, he then goes off the grid to go and offer Butch Jones, finalizing a contact in the middle of the night while boosters and other administration people sleep. Then he wants to stick it to the boosters and fans by setting Jones with a large buyout. All the meanwhile Hart and Cheek sit back and laugh amongst their Bama and UF friends.

That's how you're saying things went down. Take a step back and think about that.

 

And the boosters wanted Gruden.

 

You've pegged me, that's exactly what I think.

I don't think that Hart nor Cheek ever intended to do their best for UT Athletics. I don't think they were ever on board with a big hire, whatever the name may have been. I certainly don't think they are sitting around laughing because they are alums of UF and UA - I just think that they are unintelligent people because of it.

And you are under the impression that Hart did his absolute best, with the backing of influential boosters, to hire the best available coach?

 

Why didn't it happen then?

 

If this is the case then I am in good company.

You do realize that just because someone says something, it doesn't necessarily make it true, right?